Ok folks...
I left a few SCATHING reviews of how bad NwN2 was.. on other related posts...
For whatever reason.. I got my courage up.. and decided to try again tonight.
I noticed however, upon launching the game.. there was an update already available. After a download that took longer that downloading and updating CEP2.. I launched the game...
WA LA!
Success!
No lag, no herky jerky.. just smooth gameplay. Much, much, much better. Only thing I can tell you is that my gut (and years of game tweaking experience) is that there must have been some driver conflict with the NVidia 7800GT I have. Whatever the cause or reason, after installing the update... the game now runs fine.. and NOW fighting, and menus and all work fine with no lag. I'm very, very happy about that.
As a single player campaign, the story line seems very strong.. and now that it runs smooth, I can put it through its paces. I'm going to stay here and do just than til about mid-night and let you knwo what I think.
Still.. .I have a great PC system... I'm very curious what the PW side of this can produce.
NwN2 update
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Doofy Britches
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NwN2 update
Last edited by Doofy Britches on Wed May 30, 2007 2:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.
A Master role player is one who is willing and able to bend their character concept to make the game more enjoyable for all involved. To assist the DM in making the game fun, and to not sow discord. - Gary Gygax
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Caesius
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With time, patience and enough patches/updates/bugfixes, NWN2 should gradually get closer and closer to the kind of game we all wish it to be.
Of course some might argue at how unfair it is to use paying customers as the beta testers to find bugs but I suppose it could be worse.
Of course some might argue at how unfair it is to use paying customers as the beta testers to find bugs but I suppose it could be worse.
The only constant is change.
Re: NwN2 update
You were too quick to judge the game, i knew it couldn't be so badDoofy Britches wrote:Ok folks...
I left a few SCATHING reviews of how bad NwN2 was.. on other related posts...
For whatever reason.. I got my courage up.. and decided to try again tonight.
I noticed however, upon launching the game.. there was an update already available. After a download that took longer that downloading and updating CEP2.. I launched the game...
WA LA!
Success!
No lag, no herky jerky.. just smooth gameplay. Much, much, much better. Only thing I can tell you is that my gut (and years of game tweaking experience) is that there must have been some driver conflict with the NVidia 7800GT I have. Whatever the cause or reason, after installing the update... the game now runs fine.. and NOW fighting, and menus and all work fine with no lag. I'm very, very happy about that.
As a single player campaign, the story line seems very strong.. and now that it runs smooth, I can put it through its paces. I'm going to stay here and do just than til about mid-night and let you knwo what I think.
Still.. .I have a great PC system... I'm very curious what the PW side of this can produce.
Ray
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Doofy Britches
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Well..
All I can say is the story line seems to be well written.. but you spend a ton of time watching cut-scenes.. and I mean a lot. The menus are a bit different.. and once you get used to it.. not so bad.. they ARE organized well. Leveling is super easy. Not much challenge for a barbarian.
Everthing is in color (menus/items/spells) however.. I had that already with NwN1.. (a colorization hak).
There's more choice everywhere you go.. so that takes some learning curve. Obviously though, once the game runs smoothly.. everything else improves.. so that was critical. Yeah.. I'm willing to stick with it.. I'm sure there will be further tweaks.. just infuriating to plunk that kind of cash down and the thing doesn't run right, right of the box.
Speaking of Screenies.. I promised you that there was high end capability in NwN1 toolset... that would challenge NwN2. Here's some proof.
Here are 3 shots from a server I play on... take a close look at the terrain.. you'll note it isn't linear.. but 3D.. and traversable... everywhere.
http://www.imageigloo.com/viewer.php?id ... 0glade.JPG
http://www.imageigloo.com/viewer.php?id ... st%202.JPG
http://www.imageigloo.com/viewer.php?id ... st%201.JPG
Truly, not everyone has exlpored the possiblities in the NwN1 toolset.. and there is still a lot of capability to develop great looking mods. Yes the physical detail is less than NwN2.. but look at the terrain model!
All I can say is the story line seems to be well written.. but you spend a ton of time watching cut-scenes.. and I mean a lot. The menus are a bit different.. and once you get used to it.. not so bad.. they ARE organized well. Leveling is super easy. Not much challenge for a barbarian.
Everthing is in color (menus/items/spells) however.. I had that already with NwN1.. (a colorization hak).
There's more choice everywhere you go.. so that takes some learning curve. Obviously though, once the game runs smoothly.. everything else improves.. so that was critical. Yeah.. I'm willing to stick with it.. I'm sure there will be further tweaks.. just infuriating to plunk that kind of cash down and the thing doesn't run right, right of the box.
Speaking of Screenies.. I promised you that there was high end capability in NwN1 toolset... that would challenge NwN2. Here's some proof.
Here are 3 shots from a server I play on... take a close look at the terrain.. you'll note it isn't linear.. but 3D.. and traversable... everywhere.
http://www.imageigloo.com/viewer.php?id ... 0glade.JPG
http://www.imageigloo.com/viewer.php?id ... st%202.JPG
http://www.imageigloo.com/viewer.php?id ... st%201.JPG
Truly, not everyone has exlpored the possiblities in the NwN1 toolset.. and there is still a lot of capability to develop great looking mods. Yes the physical detail is less than NwN2.. but look at the terrain model!
A Master role player is one who is willing and able to bend their character concept to make the game more enjoyable for all involved. To assist the DM in making the game fun, and to not sow discord. - Gary Gygax
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Caesius
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- Location: Somewhere within the Imaginary Number Domain...
I willl not dispute the extensibilty of NWN1's visuals. I suppose the real benefit terrain-wise is that a tileset in NWN1 offers a certain number of preset tiles. NWN2 exteriors use a heightmap instead of tilesets and so you can shape your hills in ways beyond the scope of whatever tileset you downloaded. In other words, it has now become easier to make terrain like the one you showed when using NWN2.
The only constant is change.
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Doofy Britches
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Caesius-Caesius wrote:I willl not dispute the extensibilty of NWN1's visuals. I suppose the real benefit terrain-wise is that a tileset in NWN1 offers a certain number of preset tiles. NWN2 exteriors use a heightmap instead of tilesets and so you can shape your hills in ways beyond the scope of whatever tileset you downloaded. In other words, it has now become easier to make terrain like the one you showed when using NWN2.
Have to agree with you there. Actually, I did pull up the toolset last night after updating/patching (it hadn't worked before)... and laid out some terrain.. and it was pretty dogonne easy.. made some mountains, and a spire.. and a lake. But when I tried to put a character in to walk it.. the water didn't show up.
I do think though, that this game and the toolset.. literally scream for a state of the art system- 2gig minimum RAM, P43.0+, 7800 series video card (or equiv ATI) or better. Not that it can't run on something less, but...
Anyways.. with the player count on BSK down to 20 the last couple of days.. I'm clearly missing out on collecting some forgies....
A Master role player is one who is willing and able to bend their character concept to make the game more enjoyable for all involved. To assist the DM in making the game fun, and to not sow discord. - Gary Gygax
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Doofy Britches
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- Posts: 314
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Hey folks...
I have played on 5 different servers since I began playing in January. And participated on all of their forums. I was pretty opinionated in my review of NwN2. But I like to do my homework. I checked out initial reaction on other forums. .where the DMs/Designers participate. Here's the review of NwN2 from the owner/desginer (read-Driller level) of one very popular server (NwNVault top pick). His co-designer/scripter/lead DM had the same opinion as well.
Quoted:::
Ok, I've purchased, installed, and played the game some today, and thought I'd share my experiences as well.
Ok, the good stuff...I like the new classes, I like the new character creation setup, the feats and skills, etc. It's sexy. Pretty much (generally speaking) everything that you do, right up until you play the game, is better.
Now, the bad stuff-
Ok, remember how I just said that everything right up until you start playing is better? Well, when you start playing, it's not as good. The graphics are better, they really are...but they're not quite as good as Oblivion graphics, and more to the point, the engine seems incapable of running them without stuttering. I've set all of my settings to the absolute lowest that they'll go just to test it out, and it's still kludgy.
HELLOOOOO....same exact sound files???? Hells, why not just fix all the issues, repackage NWN 1 with a pretty new label, and market it that way?? Come on....jeeez...
I remember when nwn first came out, and it had some unwieldiness issues at first, but this is worse. Very unwieldy.
After all is said and done, I'm rather pissed off I spent the money on this at this time.
There will probably be a load of fixes and patches, just like nwn1, that make it better over time...but I remember nwn1...I was there. It wasn't this bad. Comparitively, it wasn't bad at all.
My recommendation to anyone who is the type of person to read recommendations on the internet and then follow them....is to wait before you purchase this. This seems VERY MUCH to be a product that isn't really quite ready for the public market (particularly at the price...youch). It's just not the quality I'd expect of a finished product in it's price range. Hopefully, the patches will solve this. Until then, I'll probly try to klunk through a little bit now and then to get the feel of the new stuff, for when they fix it, but as far as serious game playing, I'll be sticking with either nwn (the original) or oblivion (which, btw, has much better graphics than nwn2, and doesn't stutter when you play it).
Overall Review:
Thumbs down, will alter opinion if they patch it to work halfway decently
I have to say I agree.
I have played on 5 different servers since I began playing in January. And participated on all of their forums. I was pretty opinionated in my review of NwN2. But I like to do my homework. I checked out initial reaction on other forums. .where the DMs/Designers participate. Here's the review of NwN2 from the owner/desginer (read-Driller level) of one very popular server (NwNVault top pick). His co-designer/scripter/lead DM had the same opinion as well.
Quoted:::
Ok, I've purchased, installed, and played the game some today, and thought I'd share my experiences as well.
Ok, the good stuff...I like the new classes, I like the new character creation setup, the feats and skills, etc. It's sexy. Pretty much (generally speaking) everything that you do, right up until you play the game, is better.
Now, the bad stuff-
Ok, remember how I just said that everything right up until you start playing is better? Well, when you start playing, it's not as good. The graphics are better, they really are...but they're not quite as good as Oblivion graphics, and more to the point, the engine seems incapable of running them without stuttering. I've set all of my settings to the absolute lowest that they'll go just to test it out, and it's still kludgy.
HELLOOOOO....same exact sound files???? Hells, why not just fix all the issues, repackage NWN 1 with a pretty new label, and market it that way?? Come on....jeeez...
I remember when nwn first came out, and it had some unwieldiness issues at first, but this is worse. Very unwieldy.
After all is said and done, I'm rather pissed off I spent the money on this at this time.
There will probably be a load of fixes and patches, just like nwn1, that make it better over time...but I remember nwn1...I was there. It wasn't this bad. Comparitively, it wasn't bad at all.
My recommendation to anyone who is the type of person to read recommendations on the internet and then follow them....is to wait before you purchase this. This seems VERY MUCH to be a product that isn't really quite ready for the public market (particularly at the price...youch). It's just not the quality I'd expect of a finished product in it's price range. Hopefully, the patches will solve this. Until then, I'll probly try to klunk through a little bit now and then to get the feel of the new stuff, for when they fix it, but as far as serious game playing, I'll be sticking with either nwn (the original) or oblivion (which, btw, has much better graphics than nwn2, and doesn't stutter when you play it).
Overall Review:
Thumbs down, will alter opinion if they patch it to work halfway decently
I have to say I agree.
A Master role player is one who is willing and able to bend their character concept to make the game more enjoyable for all involved. To assist the DM in making the game fun, and to not sow discord. - Gary Gygax
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Caesius
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- Location: Somewhere within the Imaginary Number Domain...
Gamespot gives 8.6 out of 10
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/neverwin ... id=6160878
Yahoo! Games gives 4.5 out of 5 stars.
http://videogames.yahoo.com/gamereview? ... eid=490808
Gamerankings gives 89%
http://www.gamerankings.com/htmlpages2/922154.asp
Gamestats gives 92.2%
http://www.gamestats.com/objects/674/674385/
IGN gives 8.5 out of 10
http://pc.ign.com/articles/744/744019p1.html
Average score: 88.44%
The good:
-Improved toolset makes custom content easier than ever.
-Very faithful adaptation of D&D 3.5 edition rules.
-New classes.
-Extensive character creation options.
The bad:
-Raises the bar on tech requirements. You may not get a chance to truly enjoy it until you upgrade depending on the kind of rig you got. A temporary problem.
-Level limit of 20. Also temporary.
-Not enough new voices/music. Though some may find nostalgic value in it, especially if they are trying to make an NWN2 version of their favorite NWN1 characters. Still, I do hope that future expansions will give us fresher material.
The ugly:
-For the Polygonistas out there who judge games by their graphics, NWN2's quality seems only a couple shades above the Knights of the Old Republic games which is not surprising given that a number of developers worked on each of these games at one point or another. While it may not necessarily be "Bad" looking, I get the feeling that there will always be a portion of the fanbase out there that will wish it looked as good as Oblivion. Still, NWN2 has one crucial advantage over Oblivion: Better online support.
-Should you buy this game? If you have an older computer, then I say wait until you upgrade. I have been playing this game on an AMD64 X2 4200 with 2 gigs of ram and an Nvidia 7600GT with no problems except for a small lag spike or two (during a couple of the more chaotic fights).
-Like fine wine, NWN1 just got better with age with each new module, script other custom content that would be added to the community's knowledge base. And I am confident that NWN2 was coded in the same spirit. If Moore's Law is any indication, I think the kind of hardware this game needs to run smoothly will become much more commonplace 12 to 18 months from now.
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/neverwin ... id=6160878
Yahoo! Games gives 4.5 out of 5 stars.
http://videogames.yahoo.com/gamereview? ... eid=490808
Gamerankings gives 89%
http://www.gamerankings.com/htmlpages2/922154.asp
Gamestats gives 92.2%
http://www.gamestats.com/objects/674/674385/
IGN gives 8.5 out of 10
http://pc.ign.com/articles/744/744019p1.html
Average score: 88.44%
The good:
-Improved toolset makes custom content easier than ever.
-Very faithful adaptation of D&D 3.5 edition rules.
-New classes.
-Extensive character creation options.
The bad:
-Raises the bar on tech requirements. You may not get a chance to truly enjoy it until you upgrade depending on the kind of rig you got. A temporary problem.
-Level limit of 20. Also temporary.
-Not enough new voices/music. Though some may find nostalgic value in it, especially if they are trying to make an NWN2 version of their favorite NWN1 characters. Still, I do hope that future expansions will give us fresher material.
The ugly:
-For the Polygonistas out there who judge games by their graphics, NWN2's quality seems only a couple shades above the Knights of the Old Republic games which is not surprising given that a number of developers worked on each of these games at one point or another. While it may not necessarily be "Bad" looking, I get the feeling that there will always be a portion of the fanbase out there that will wish it looked as good as Oblivion. Still, NWN2 has one crucial advantage over Oblivion: Better online support.
-Should you buy this game? If you have an older computer, then I say wait until you upgrade. I have been playing this game on an AMD64 X2 4200 with 2 gigs of ram and an Nvidia 7600GT with no problems except for a small lag spike or two (during a couple of the more chaotic fights).
-Like fine wine, NWN1 just got better with age with each new module, script other custom content that would be added to the community's knowledge base. And I am confident that NWN2 was coded in the same spirit. If Moore's Law is any indication, I think the kind of hardware this game needs to run smoothly will become much more commonplace 12 to 18 months from now.
The only constant is change.
Thanks Caesius, i was looking for the IGN review last night but never found the numerical score. As for the graphics, everyone seems to want more realistic graphics than what they get, you give them better graphics than Oblivion and 2 weeks later they'll be wanting better graphics yet. We have to settle with what we get and be happy, IMHO better greaphics means less supported hardware...yes NWN2 lagged terribly (or still does) but that was/is due to holes the system had that Obsidian is probably patching as we type these posts here. Oblivion isn't the perfect game, yea it's ok but it's the best thing in the whole world IMO, plus you can't compare Oblivion to NWN2 there are many reason why Obsidian may have decided to go with less intense graphics, 1 such reason may be the Multiplayer aspect, im pretty sure they are well aware of the Persistant Worlds NWN has and while they don't officially support it they weren't going to cut it off the list of possibilities.
So lets be happy with what we've got and those that have NWN2 go report any bugs you find to Obsidian/Atari so they can put it on their "To-Fix" list. Im probably going to get NWN2 sometime next week and im confident of being able to run it around Medium settings and if i can't...oh well i've had to go lower on Oblivion (i.e lower draw distance, anti aliasing and turn off shadows).
So lets be happy with what we've got and those that have NWN2 go report any bugs you find to Obsidian/Atari so they can put it on their "To-Fix" list. Im probably going to get NWN2 sometime next week and im confident of being able to run it around Medium settings and if i can't...oh well i've had to go lower on Oblivion (i.e lower draw distance, anti aliasing and turn off shadows).
My personal experience with the game:
1. Graphics lag. ABSOLUTELY NONE. Only problem I had was when I had a firewall update in the background and hadn't noticed. I wondered why my game started lagging, when I minimised I found out why. After cancelling the aforementioned update, the game ran smoothly.
2. Apart from getting used to the new, more sensitive movement and camera swivels, I find everything comfortingly familiar.
3. The old voicesets and old music made me SQUEE. I swear, walking into that old ruin in the swamp and hearing the music I put into a cave in NWN1 made me want to cry. I bounced a little, and was completely ecstatic at the fact that it hadn't changed too much. The old voicesets were nice, with a few new ones to add enough refreshment to it without changing it.
Anyone who is overly shocked by the closeness of the game really has to remember: this is Neverwinter Nights 2. This is not an entirely new game, and therefore I think, personally, that the fact that they stuck so closely to the old game is amazing. Look at it! The game was meant to be a graphics and storyline update. Let's face it, NWN1 was getting old. It was gorgeous, it was fun, and I loved it dearly, but it was getting beyond its time. Graphics were excelling past it, the game had the capability to keep on rolling but they wanted to make it look shinier, and in my opinion that's exactly what they did.
My boyfriend and I were concerned that the new developers would get a little too boisterous with the changes and make the game too different. We worried about class changes, the loss of the radial menu, rule changes and the way the new toolset would limit the number of areas we could create (not sure if this is confirmed, rumour has it that there is a 50 area cap). However, we giggled like little school children when we discovered everything, everything was familiar, and nostaligically appreciated. We were not shocked and horrified at the loss of anything in particular, we found several things that we had, in the past, "wished NWN would let you do..." had now been included. Overall, the feeling we got from the game was that the developers had taken the magnificent piece of work that is NWN1 and trimmed bits they felt were unnecessary and added things that the community had asked for, all the while retaining everything about the first game that we love, and presenting it in an absolute, jaw-dropping visual experience.
In other words, the developers made a sequel to NWN1, they didn't make a new game like some people here seem to have expected. Sequel may even be too strong a word to use, as we would put it, they took NWN1 and just as they promised and intended, they gave NWN1 a makeover.
PS. This isn't to say I'm leaving NWN1, I adore it. Hell, I've spent approximately 18 months working on an NWN1 module! It just means I can make a smooth, comfortable transition into NWN2, with no regrets. NWN1 will become a fondly remembered childhood friend whom I will often visit and reminisce with.
1. Graphics lag. ABSOLUTELY NONE. Only problem I had was when I had a firewall update in the background and hadn't noticed. I wondered why my game started lagging, when I minimised I found out why. After cancelling the aforementioned update, the game ran smoothly.
2. Apart from getting used to the new, more sensitive movement and camera swivels, I find everything comfortingly familiar.
3. The old voicesets and old music made me SQUEE. I swear, walking into that old ruin in the swamp and hearing the music I put into a cave in NWN1 made me want to cry. I bounced a little, and was completely ecstatic at the fact that it hadn't changed too much. The old voicesets were nice, with a few new ones to add enough refreshment to it without changing it.
Anyone who is overly shocked by the closeness of the game really has to remember: this is Neverwinter Nights 2. This is not an entirely new game, and therefore I think, personally, that the fact that they stuck so closely to the old game is amazing. Look at it! The game was meant to be a graphics and storyline update. Let's face it, NWN1 was getting old. It was gorgeous, it was fun, and I loved it dearly, but it was getting beyond its time. Graphics were excelling past it, the game had the capability to keep on rolling but they wanted to make it look shinier, and in my opinion that's exactly what they did.
My boyfriend and I were concerned that the new developers would get a little too boisterous with the changes and make the game too different. We worried about class changes, the loss of the radial menu, rule changes and the way the new toolset would limit the number of areas we could create (not sure if this is confirmed, rumour has it that there is a 50 area cap). However, we giggled like little school children when we discovered everything, everything was familiar, and nostaligically appreciated. We were not shocked and horrified at the loss of anything in particular, we found several things that we had, in the past, "wished NWN would let you do..." had now been included. Overall, the feeling we got from the game was that the developers had taken the magnificent piece of work that is NWN1 and trimmed bits they felt were unnecessary and added things that the community had asked for, all the while retaining everything about the first game that we love, and presenting it in an absolute, jaw-dropping visual experience.
In other words, the developers made a sequel to NWN1, they didn't make a new game like some people here seem to have expected. Sequel may even be too strong a word to use, as we would put it, they took NWN1 and just as they promised and intended, they gave NWN1 a makeover.
PS. This isn't to say I'm leaving NWN1, I adore it. Hell, I've spent approximately 18 months working on an NWN1 module! It just means I can make a smooth, comfortable transition into NWN2, with no regrets. NWN1 will become a fondly remembered childhood friend whom I will often visit and reminisce with.
"Whyyyy?! Whyyy my piggy, whyyy? I loveded you piggy, I loveded youuu!" -- Gir, Invader Zim
It breaks my heart everytime I hear it! xD
It breaks my heart everytime I hear it! xD
... By the way, new feats?
OMG MONKEY GRIP <33 I held my first torch today...WITH a greatsword in hand ^^ I also swung it WITH one hand!
Excuse me, but I think I need a private moment...
OMG MONKEY GRIP <33 I held my first torch today...WITH a greatsword in hand ^^ I also swung it WITH one hand!
Excuse me, but I think I need a private moment...
"Whyyyy?! Whyyy my piggy, whyyy? I loveded you piggy, I loveded youuu!" -- Gir, Invader Zim
It breaks my heart everytime I hear it! xD
It breaks my heart everytime I hear it! xD
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wdpepsiman
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- Joined: Tue Jul 04, 2006 4:51 pm
way to uber a feat for a lvl 1 char, this is a mistake in my opinion to grant such a feat at this level.
other than a few mistakes at giving feats to early and such the gameplay is horrid and the menus are awful ya what a waste of money for nwn2.
but then again maybe all the patches will fix this but i doubt it.
other than a few mistakes at giving feats to early and such the gameplay is horrid and the menus are awful ya what a waste of money for nwn2.
but then again maybe all the patches will fix this but i doubt it.